Mark Shapiro

Our exuberant and versatile conductor, Mark Shapiro, has been Artistic Director of Cantori New York for over two decades. He is one of a handful of artistic leaders in North America to have won a prestigious ASCAP Programming Award five times, achieving the unique distinction of winning this award with three different ensembles. The New York Times has praised him as an “insightful conductor” whose work exhibits “uncommon polish”; he has been characterized by the New Jersey Star-Ledger as “erudite and far-reaching.”

In addition to his post as Artistic Director of Cantori New York, Mr. Shapiro is Music Director of the Prince Edward Island Symphony, for whom he recently spearheaded a commissioning project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference; he also leads The Cecilia Chorus of New York, which presents an annual subscription series in Carnegie Hall that, under Mr. Shapiro’s leadership, has recently included that organization’s first-ever commissions for the hall.

Active as an opera conductor, Mr. Shapiro has conducted operas for Juilliard Vocal Arts, American Opera Projects, The Center for Contemporary Opera, Metro Lyric Opera, the Opera Company of Middlebury, and Underworld Opera. He has been a guest on radio programs with WNYC and WQXR, and was heard conducting the soundtrack on Ken Burns’s PBS series about New York City. With Cantori New York, Mr. Shapiro has conducted over 160 national, local and world premieres by an impressive roster of international composers.

Mr. Shapiro is Associate Professor of Music at LIU Post, where he was recently accorded the University’s highest award for academic achievement. He teaches conducting at the Juilliard School (Evening Division) and has been a long-time member of the conducting faculty of Mannes College the New School for Music. Mr. Shapiro is Director of the Conducting Program at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France. He frequently serves as a pre-concert lecturer and narrator of orchestral concerts, and has been a panelist for The Philadelphia Music Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the State of Connecticut, the Ann Stookey Fund for New Music, Chorus America, and the American Choral Directors Association.